1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a video game machine for business use and, more particularly, to the improvement of a game machine used for a long-time video game.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Various kinds of video games are played by using video game machines for business use or home video game machines. Video games are largely separated into two kinds, namely, short-time games and long-time games depending upon the time required for playing one game.
Short-time games the programs of which are simpler in comparison with those of long-time games form the majority of the present video games. Most of the games played with video game machines for business use are short-time games, because short-time games which requires a comparatively short time for playing one game are advantageous from the point of view of business.
Such short-time games are, however, apt to be monotonous and involves a danger of boring the players.
On the other hand, long-time games which require a long time for playing one game can have a story as a whole and be full of variety.
As such long-time video games having a story, adventure games such as a treasure-hunting game, a go-through-labyrinth game are known.
For example, a treasure-hunting game is composed of a short story consisting of 20 stages. When the hero has completed predetermined treasure-hunting using a shovel, a key and so forth at one stage, the scene is moved to the next stage, and new treasure-hunting is begun in accordance with the story at the stage.
A go-through-labyrinth game is also known in which a plurality of checkpoints are set at each stage, one of which is set as a key for threading the labyrinth, and the others as treasure for making scores, and when the hero finds a key for threading the labyrinth at each stage the door for leading to the next stage is open.
In such an adventure game, when the hero finds out a checkpoint which is a key to each stage, the door leading to each stage is continuously kept open, and when the hero proceeds to the 20th stage, it is also possible to return to the previous stages to find out the treasure which remains un-found and to increase the scores.
Such a long-time video game generally requires several hours to end one game, and it is therefore necessary to make the game such that when it is suspended from the needs of the body or other reasons, it is possible to resume the game from the state in which it has been suspended.
To this end, a home game machine is provided with a dedicated memory for storing the progress data representing the state of games at the time of the interruption of the game, for example, a main factor which represents the state of the stage at the time of the interruption of the game and a sub factor which represents the history of the hero (for example, in the above-described treasure-hunting game, the number of treasure found, the number and the performance of shovels to be used, and the kinds of keys to open the doors) at the t the time of the interruption of the game.
When the game is suspended, the main factor and the sub factor which represent the progress of the game are temporarily stored, and when the game is resumed, these factors are read from the memory to set the initial condition of the game and the game is resumed from the state in which it has been suspended.
In a game machine for business use, however, the playing time per game is limited to a short time for business' sake, and it is difficult to adopt such a long-time video game as described above as it is.
It may be possible to provide a dedicated internal memory to a video game machine for business use similarly to a home video machine.
However, most players enjoy the same game with different machines at different game houses at different times. Therefore, even if a dedicated internal memory such as described above is attached to each game machine, the stored data are scarcely practically used.
Furthermore, since such a video game machine for business use is used by many and unspecified players, if a dedicated internal memory similar to that of a home game machine is attached, the necessary capacity of memory becomes very large. Thus, attachment of a dedicated internal memory to a video game machine for business use is unpractical.
It may be possible to sell a memory card exclusively for a long-time game at each game house and to write and store the status data on the progress of the game on the individual card, thereby enabling the player to resume the game with the same kind of game machine from the state in which it has previously been suspended.
However the method of selling a card exclusive for an external memory is undesirable because it compels the player to spend extra cost for buying the card and to control the card.